Man subdued on Southwest flight
 |
Story Tools
|
(CNN) -- A man aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Nevada to California threatened to "take this aircraft down" and became so unruly that flight attendants and passengers had to subdue him with plastic restraints, officials said Thursday.
An FBI spokesman in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the flight originated Wednesday, said Salvador Gonzalez, 27, of Oceanside, California, had been arraigned Thursday and charged with assault, interfering with a flight crew, giving false information and making threats.
A judge ordered that he remain in custody.
The FBI spokesman said that soon after Southwest Airlines Flight 2466 from Las Vegas to Ontario, California, got under way, Gonzalez told a flight attendant he wanted to speak to police in Ontario as soon as the plane landed.
When he took his seat, he complained of breathing difficulties, the spokesman said, and demanded oxygen. Gonzalez then got up and walked toward the front of the aircraft and began making threatening statements, the FBI spokesman said.
"He said, 'I want to get off this plane, do I have to say there is a bomb on the plane to get off?' and 'I'm going to take this aircraft down,'" the FBI spokesman said.
Gonzalez was also aggressive and pulled luggage out of overhead bins, the spokesman said, at which point he was subdued and beaten by passengers. He sustained minor injuries, the spokesman said.
Southwest Airlines spokesman Ed Stewart said Gonzalez also rocked in his chair so forcefully that he knocked it loose from the floor.
The plane was diverted back to Las Vegas, the FBI spokesman said, and Gonzalez was arrested upon arrival.
CNN producer Beth Lewandowski contributed to this report.
